By day, my husband Bart is an ag lender, loaning money to farmers for land, equipment and livestock. By night, he co-owns a sports bar in the lake town in which we live. When we got engaged, he joked about the roles I would soon be playing in his business. I laughed then, but once we moved in together and were married, I more consistently heard about the stressors he was experiencing in the bar business. Obviously, I wanted to take some of this stress off of him and, consequently, have been helping publicize the bar’s events for the past 10 weeks.

I’m no marketer, but I’ve been sharing knowledge from my career in magazines. I’ve started weekly meetings with the owners and managers, which has helped everyone’s communication. I’ve expanded the bar’s social media presence. And I’ve brought in one of my own trusted partners, a graphic designer who now is creating fliers, promos and coupons for the bar. At this point, I’m not sure whether my efforts truly are making a difference—though the bar has been packed the past few weekends—but I do know my husband is grateful to have me more involved.

Relying on trusted partners also can have a positive effect on your roofing business. For example, Pete Mazzuca III, co-founder, executive vice president and sales manager for Cal-Vintage Roofing of Northern California, Sacramento, explains his partnership with Santa Rosa, Calif.-based Ygrene Energy Fund in “Business Sense”. Through the partnership, Mazzuca’s roofing company now can offer customers YgreneWorks PACE financing for energy-efficiency and resiliency upgrades, including roofing, on their homes or businesses. Ygrene considers the equity in the property, not the personal credit of the owner, unlocking finance doors for entire groups of customers. Consequently, the partnership with Ygrene Energy Fund has increased Mazzuca’s business by 20 percent.

Trusting a partner’s expertise can ensure roofing projects meet a building owner’s needs while being cost-effective. In our “Cover Story”, Atlanta-based Diamond Roofing Co., which has its own sheet-metal shop, opted to partner with a supplier to source prefabricated edge metal for the roofing project at Gordon Hospital, Calhoun, Ga. The prefabricated edge metal had been formally tested to meet or exceed the FM 1-105 criterion required by hospital officials. In addition, by ordering the large volume of edge metal the hospital project needed, Diamond Roofing saved time and labor costs.

Last but not least, Thomas W. Hutchinson, AIA, FRCI, RRC, CSI, RRP, principal of Hutchinson Design Group Ltd., Barrington, Ill., and a member of Roofing’s editorial advisory board, often regales us with stories from his in-the-field experiences. In “From the Hutchinson Files”, Hutch explains how to be a better partner when communicating and coordinating between trades—in this case, plumbing, steel and roof design during implementation of roof drains according to new energy code requirements. Because—as Hutch will tell you—it’s not enough to just be a partner and provide generic details; you should be the best partner you can be and really think through roof system design.

To expand its services and make it easier for patients and visitors to navigate its facility, Gordon Hospital, Calhoun, Ga., underwent a $37 million expansion. The project added 59,000 square feet of hospital space, renovated 11,500 square feet of space, and created a new patient tower entrance to separate inpatient and outpatient service entrances. The various aspects of the project included 11 different roof areas, so the project’s general contractor, the Atlanta office of Birmingham, Ala.-based Brasfield & Gorrie, brought Atlanta’s Diamond Roofing Co. into the project during concept design.

The architects designed all the curves and unique walls to make the campus beyond ordinary and give the hospital a certain appeal.

“The hospital addition and renovation was still just a sketch and a narrative, and we worked together to understand the owner’s needs and architect’s intent,” says Dave Mossige, Diamond Roofing’s president. “Roofing systems have be- come very complex over the years and it really does take a roofing specialist to navigate the numerous options and decide the best roofing systems for the project.”

Having the roofing contractor onboard from inception also helped with staging. When it became apparent that two canopies between the new and existing buildings would pose significant challenges with materials’ access, the team was able to plan ahead and stock-pile materials near the area months pri- or to needing them.

GETTING THINGS LEVEL

Because this was a fast-track project, 10 to 15 crew members worked across multiple roof areas. “All the other trades come in behind us once we have the roof ready, so getting the roof area dried-in was key to the schedule,” Mossige says. “That’s why we chose a more durable two-ply modified bitumen rather than a single-ply system for the roofing. Disturbances that happened to the base while the trades were working off the roofs could be quickly and easily repaired before we applied the cap sheet.”

The roofing areas added up to 25,400 square feet of space, including the main roof, penthouse and various other canopies. The main roof on the new addition was unique because it was divided into two portions: one with a steel deck and another with a concrete deck for future vertical expansion. The concrete deck was 5-inches higher than the steel deck.

To make the steel deck meet the thickness of the adjacent concrete deck for a level roof, Diamond Roofing’s team mechanically fastened 5 inches of polyisocyanurate insulation on the steel and then installed a 1/4-inch-per-foot-total tapered ISO system. The team then applied a cover board to increase the system’s wind rating and provide better adhesion of the base ply. The tapered system and cover board were set in ribbons of low-rise foam adhesive. The next layer was an SBS modified bitumen as a cold-process adhesive and then a fire-rated granular cap sheet, also set in a cold-process adhesive.

Although Diamond Roofing has a sheet-metal shop in which team members fabricate edge metal, it worked with a supplier to source prefabricated edge metal that had been formally tested to meet or exceed the hospital’s required FM 1-105 criterion.

PRECISE EDGE METAL

Although Diamond Roofing has a sheet-metal shop in which team members fabricate edge metal, most of the roofing firm’s product is equivalent to a wind rating of FM 1-60 and FM 1-90. FM approval ratings apply to uplift pressures in pounds per square foot. Hospitals are constructed to stricter standards, however, and officials at Gordon Hospital wanted to ensure an FM 1-105 approval rating. Diamond Roofing worked with a supplier to source prefabricated edge metal that had been formally tested to meet or exceed the FM 1-105 criterion.

The ability to order the sheer volume of edge metal needed also saved time on the project. “We had over 2,500 lineal feet of edge metal on this project. That would’ve taken us three weeks to fabricate,” Mossige explains. “In addition, the highly unique specifications of the edge metal needed for the project made it more cost-effective for us to outsource it.”

The edge metal needed to be a heavy gauge of 0.063 prefinished aluminum with a protective Kynar 500 resin-based coating. The architects also wanted welded mitered corners. In certain places on the roofs, unusual radiuses and slopes—occasionally joining with straight coping at offset angles—meant some inside and outside miters had to be exactingly produced for odd angles like 104 and 140 degrees.

For example, on one parapet, two different elevations come together at a corner, making precision critical for the manufacturer and installer. “When you are dealing with preformed metal, you have to be precise,” Mossige notes, “but when you’re doing a raised, offset miter, you have to be perfect.”

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November/December 2017 issue

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About Roofing

Roofing is a national publication that unravels, investigates and analyzes how to properly design, install and maintain a roof system. Through the voices of professionals in the field, Roofing’s editorial provides a unique perspective.